I Tried To Be Her Loyal Sword

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“Did my mother… have a younger sister?”

I asked blankly, still in shock. Caesar nodded quietly.

The plea to save my younger sister stirred a dreadful déjà vu within me. I could never forget that horrifying moment when I had knelt before the mansion hall, begging for Aria’s life.

“Her name was Symphony Hella. She was the younger sister, and her health was poor. I found out later during my investigation.”

“That is…”

“Yes. She resembled Aria.”

Caesar sighed and stared blankly at the ceiling, a habit of his whenever he felt troubled.

“Her father was a gambler. He squandered the family fortune on gambling. When he had even sold their house, drowning in debts like a mountain, the only possessions left to sell were his two daughters.”

To buy and sell them like goods. Becoming trophies and then worthless relics when youth waned. For some, it was a familiar tragedy that had repeated for centuries.

“I heard that Baron Hella threatened her sister. If she couldn’t achieve results at the Duke’s Mansion, he wouldn’t let her sister off easily.”

I held my breath to avoid retching in disgust.

Even though Caesar hinted at it, the intention of that Baron Hella was crystal clear.

“‘Go bear the Duke’s child. My daughter is merely a tool to him.'”

One should appreciate the grace of being born and raised, but that doesn’t mean children are possessions of their parents. The path of their lives must wholly belong to them. Regardless of gender or age.

“Why did you have to be used like that?”

What meaning did I hold for you, born into such a situation?

One thing was clear: I probably was not the existence she desired.

Pregnancy deeply affects the body of a mother, and the weight of new life can be overwhelming for any single person to bear. No one should dare to impose it or use it as a tool for something else.

“You were likely more important than I, a person born without blessings, who grew up without love due to having no father.”

Even though I had steeled myself to some degree, the realization of being an unwanted existence was miserable.

It would be a lie to say I wasn’t resentful. However, the love she had for her sister was something I could not ignore, so I felt more kinship than resentment.

“Why couldn’t we protect our sister with our own strength?”

Though the circumstances were different, the conclusion was similar: the inherited ineptitude. A frail younger sister stuck in muck, unable to escape without the aid of strong men.

Why didn’t the God grant us strength? It wasn’t from a lack of effort.

I closed my eyes, shutting away the incoming sense of powerlessness.

She, who had made me feel miserable, was a victim—a single sister trying to protect her younger sibling. I could not bring myself to hate my mother, Anteia Hella.

After a moment of silence, as I organized my thoughts, Caesar resumed speaking slowly.

“I have never given anyone an unfounded favor until that day. She was the first. With chestnut brown hair and silvery gray eyes. Your drooping eyes must have come from her. She was desperate. That’s why she was full of life. She stood before me, unafraid, willing to save her sister’s life… because she feared more for her sister’s death than her own.”

Caesar’s voice was calm, as though recounting an ancient legend, yet his red eyes were tinged with despair.

“She even suggested I give her money. I thought that if I could give her enough, perhaps Baron Hella would quiet down. But she said that wouldn’t work. Even if I gave her money, she would squander it at the gambling table within a day.”

Once, when I lived as a mercenary, I had seen gamblers due to the nature of my work. I still remembered their lowly eyes, gleaming with madness.

Those who wished for a fortune without effort. Fools betting their lives on slim prospects. Their madness never broke.

Was Anteia Hella not filled with madness back then? Love is a kind of madness. I suspected that she, wanting to save her sister, was likely as seized by this notion as by any insanity.

“She said she needed time. Time to escape with her sister. She prepared for months, unable to confirm if she was pregnant, assuring that she would certainly escape this mud with her own power.”

Her own power. That single phrase carried the frustration of that time. I took a dry gulp.

In the end, I was merely a tool. There was no way to glamorize this. I couldn’t and shouldn’t glamorize it. Regardless of the reason, using life as a tool was clearly a crime and a wrongdoing.

“But was there no other way for her?”

In a situation where her sister’s life was threatened, was it right to witness that life extinguished or use another life instead?

It was a dilemma. There was no right answer from the start.

“If she had power. If her sister had not been ill. If her father was not wicked.”

Countless “what ifs” dominated my thoughts.

Why did the world offer her only the worst choices? I pressed down on the terrible emotions and came to a conclusion.

“She merely chose what she loved from the worst of dilemmas.”

That must have been her best choice amidst the worst. Using a life to save her love.

“Love can never be a sin, no matter when.”

I could not bring myself to say her choice was wrong.

“The sin of using life, the sin that would prevent a child born from being blessed if pregnant, she said she would bear it all. If someone had to fall into prison, it must be herself, and the other would survive no matter what. She couldn’t promise happiness but swore to keep the other alive.”

Caesar’s voice trembled lightly. This was a look I had never seen on him before. He covered his eyes with his large hand.

“So, that day, I embraced her.”

I held my mouth shut. Unfathomable emotions surged from my heart, almost spilling forth like blood through prayer.

“I do not regret having you, nor do I regret my complacency towards her. If it had been me, I could have saved her and her sister from the Baron, but I did not. I… thought it was not my business.”

Caesar’s voice was laced with moisture.

Guilt is like a tempestuous sea; the moment it surges, it engulfs whole lives.

Certainly, Caesar, who was a duke at that time, must have had the power to help. He could have helped more directly and surely. Not helping was purely Caesar’s choice.

But is that a sin? Can one consider the failure to act as a sin?

In the end, he had shown goodwill. He provided what Anteia had wished for. It was a problem that could be neither innocuous nor guilty.

“At that time, I didn’t know of your existence. I never imagined that you could change my world entirely, nor that you would enable me to utter happiness.”

I held my breath. The sight of Caesar’s red eyes, soaked in emotion, threatened to shatter the tenuous calm I was maintaining.

Those eyes, filled with guilt, screamed that he loved me.

“I’m sorry for bringing you into a world of suffering, for not being able to protect your childhood.”

I bit my lip and covered my eyes with my arm. Tears streamed down as my scarred and ugly arm pressed against my face.

I struggled to suppress my sobs, only managing irregular breaths to contain my cries. It was my last shred of dignity.

I was born without blessings and grew in unhappiness, taking despair as the truth. I had no regrets about my life, yet I sometimes questioned the reason for my birth.

Had I never been born, it wouldn’t have been so hard.

But due to my responsibility towards Aria, I couldn’t even think of dying, and I wrestled with the tragedy set in motion by my birth.

The world would continue to write a new storyline as if nothing had happened without me.

This burgeoning anger over being born had no outlet. Whom should I even blame?

“I’m sorry. Really, truly sorry.”

Caesar hurriedly moved to kneel in front of me and whispered endlessly. The icy hand wiping my cheeks only made me cry more.

I thought your chilled hand was so wonderful, yet why did you never hold my little hand with it?

“She returned the next night, and… I was summoned by the Emperor early in the morning for work, only to hear about it the day after she left.”

Caesar continued, struggling to get the words out.

“That day, the creditors set fire to the Hella mansion.”

I gasped. Perhaps God really despised me. I had plagued everyone around me with tragedy.

I managed to catch my breath amid my irregular breathing.

“Then…?”

“…Baron Hella and Symphony Hella died.”

I couldn’t comprehend. After clearing my throat several times, I finally managed to stammer out my question.

“Why would a creditor kill a debtor?”

“Why did the creditor kill the debtor instead of collecting the debt? I questioned the creditors I brought in later…

Caesar, seemingly hesitant to share, slightly closed his eyes and spoke.

“…They said Baron Hella had promised several times to repay the debt but hadn’t, leading them to bankruptcy, and out of frustration, they set fire to the mansion.”

‘Symphony Hella.’

I recalled her, resembling Aria. Born with a sickly body, becoming a burden to Anteia, burned because of her father.

Was she really useless? No, perhaps because she was ill, or due to being a fallen baron’s young lady, she never had the chance to uncover and blossom her talents?

There is no life that deserves to perish like that. No one should die in such a manner.

Once again, tears streamed down my face. The pent-up anger without a destination, the sorrow over the tragedy flowed down like ash from my eyes.

“Since then, I have searched for you. You and Anteia Hella. She alone did not create you. I believed I had to share the responsibility, so I searched desperately.”

Caesar held my waist and gazed at me with eyes hardened like stone. I had no response.

“But no matter how much I searched, Anteia Hella did not exist in this world. I thought she and you both perished on that day the Hella mansion burned down. The timing of Anteia’s passing was almost identical to the fire at the Hella mansion. So… I stopped searching. I’m sorry.”

Caesar finished in a desperate voice, unable to raise his head, trembling hands grasping me weakly.

Anteia Hella must have died that day.

The meaning of ‘Anteia’ is ‘flower.’ I wondered if the flower had also burned alongside my sister that day.

“Was that why you chose your new name?”

You must have needed strength. You probably didn’t want to rely on anyone else anymore.

Audrey. I rolled the name on my tongue.

It means ‘strength.’

I curled up and cried silently. I had truly learned to cry silently, so it wasn’t difficult. But Caesar’s expression, witnessing me, fell apart, crushed.

“I… love you…”

“Do you… love me?”

I rubbed my blurry eyes with clenched fists and looked up at Caesar.

Staring into his eyes, still filled with affection despite the moisture, I felt my lost resentment slowly melt away.

I did not want to release this feeling by blaming anyone. I didn’t want to sear my wounds with anger at the monster lurking beyond the veil.

What I needed was certainty: someone loved me, even if I was born into tragedy.

“I… love you. I dare to confess that the journey of my life has been about finding you. I love and cherish you enough to say my unbearable tedium and the emptiness that hit me daily were trials for wanting to gain you.”

Caesar drew me in, pressing his forehead against mine, speaking softly, like a traveler desperately finding water in endless thirst.

I held back the tears that teased the corners of my eyes and opened my arms.

“Then, please hug me.”

The confirmation that someone is beside me and that there would be someone to cry for me when I die.

I wanted to feel that there was a reason for my birth.

Caesar hurriedly wrapped his arms around me. The arms holding me tightly trembled faintly.

Silently, I buried my face in his shoulder.

I thought of this as a hug directed towards the lonely child I once was.